Friday, May 24, 2013

Dial in the Birdie

By Chet
Williamson

Charlie Parker and Ross Russell

He once
owned Dial Records, a jazz label that documented some of Charlie Parker’s most
important sides. So, how
is it that at the label’s height, he walked away from the business, only to
purchase a golf course in Leicester, MA?

He is
Ross Russell, one of the most respected, yet reviled names in jazz history. In
his career, he not only recorded Parker, but later became his biographer. He is
the author of Bird Lives! The High Life
and Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker. His association with the
legendary saxophonist gathers Russell both praise and condemnation.

Russell’s
career in the music business and his life as a writer is well documented. His
life in golf is not.

From
1956-’59, he owned and operated the Leicester Country Club, one of the oldest
golf courses in the state of Massachusetts and lived at 12 Boynton Street in Worcester. Other than that, very little is known about Russell’s time spent
here.

The golf
course had many owners in its long history. The most recent is Chuck Bois, who
in addition to managing the day-to-day operations is trying collect memorabilia
to adorn the clubhouse and banquet facility walls. He says that previous
owners “took everything.”

Speaking
with town historians and librarians, they say that the Russell name is well-known in Leicester. Russell Manufacturing
made game cards in town for decades and there are Russells scattered throughout the area.
None, however, appear to be connected with Ross Russell.

So how
and why did he come to Leicester? This is what we do know: The March 9,
1956
issue of the Leicester Weekly News reported
the purchase of the golf course. The links were then called Mount
Pleasant Country Club. It was sold by a “group of private owners to Ross
Russell of New York City, and a former golf professional
in California. Mr. Russell said he would
operate the club on a semi-public basis rather than its form status as a
private club. Season membership and semi-public pay plan will be introduced he
said.”

The
article also reported that he was a former golf professional at Westwood Hills
Country Club, Beverly Hills, California and a native of the state [Glendale] who was a graduate of UCLA.

Other
than that, nothing is written about Russell’s past, especially his jazz life.
Most of the piece is about the history of the course, which was founded in
1896. The assessed value of the property in 1955, which included a clubhouse,
sheds, and nearly 100 acres, was less than $15,000.

According
to Edward M. Komara, author of The Dial
Recordings of Charlie Parker; a discography, Russell “moved to Massachusetts and took up two of his previous
professions, golf and writing.”

Tempo Music Shop

Before
getting into these vocations in further detail, a statement about Dial Records
is in order. In 1946, after running the Tempo Music Shop, a record store in Hollywood, Russell founded the label. In
addition to recording Parker, whom it is said the label was started for,
Russell also recorded a who’s who of legendary bebop musicians, including Dizzy
Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, and Wardell Gray.

Wardell Gray

Komara
reported that by 1948, Russell was no longer interested in recording jazz, but
released reissued material. “In later years, Russell regretted not scheduling
additional jazz sessions, admitting that he had opportunities to record
Thelonious Monk and the Modern Jazz Quartet.

“He
continued his jazz reissues along with the new releases in contemporary
classical music and calypso. Despite these recording sessions and acquisitions
in jazz, classical, and folk, Dial closed in 1954.

“Russell
sold his jazz sessions to the firm Concert Hall, sending them the master tapes,
master pressing lists and log sheets on June 3, 1954. Less than a year later, on March
12, 1955,
Dial’s leading artist Charlie Parker died in New York,” Komara said.

By 1955,
Russell was also on the east coast. His forays into writing and golf were taking
much of his time. According to Komara, before purchasing Leicester Country
Club, Russell operated the RevereGolfRange in Revere, MA.

Apparently,
Russell’s time spent in Leicester was in raising a family (he married five times and had
four children), operating the course, and writing. Komara said that before
selling LCC and returning to California, Russell worked on The Sound, “a novel depicting jazz
musicians and hipsters in the 1940s. Also, Russell was contacted by Grove Press
in 1957 for a biography of Charlie Parker, but no results at the time.”

Komara
added that, after the publication of The
Sound in 1960, Russell continued to write about jazz and eventually g0t
busy working on the Parker biography.

A quick
word on Russell’s controversial reputation in jazz: It dates back to Dial. The
accounts are well documented. Russell is essentially demonized for insisting on
recording Parker while he was dope-sick. The other is his graphic look at
Bird’s addiction, which Russell is accused of indulging readers in within the
biography.

Ross Russell

Regardless
of what you think of the man, his words and/or actions, it is fascinating to
think that just one year after Charlie Parker’s death, one of his biographers
was walking the bucolic greens of Mt. Pleasant at Leicester Country Club,
contemplating the lives of great jazz musicians.

Leicester Country Club today

*Note: This is a work
in progress. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are always welcome at: walnutharmonicas@gmail.com. Check
out my features on Worcester songwriters at: www.worcestersongs.blog.spot.com.
Thank you.Resources